The European Food Supplement Project ‐Identification of emerging risks associated with food supplements, other than vitamins and minerals

Abstract In the frame of tailor‐made activities of EFSA focal points, a community of knowledge has been created to address possible emerging risks due to the consumption of food supplements other than vitamins and minerals (hereafter referred to as “food supplements”). The scope of this project is to gather information in order to facilitate the prioritisation of substances that are likely to be regulated under Article 8 of Regulation (EC) No 1925/2006. The project was divided into two work packages: The Vigilance work package aimed at collecting alerts to identify possible emerging risks from (nutri)vigilance/monitoring systems in Europe and other accessible sources, such as Toxinfo collections or signals from Poison centres; The Plant work package was focused on the identification on the market of food supplements containing plant‐based substances that are predicted to be toxic, as outlined in the EFSA Compendium on Botanicals. The Vigilance work package identified six ingredients that are possibly sources of emerging risks: Bifidobacterium, Coleus (Plectranthus barbatus), Guggul (Commiphora mukul), Toothed clubmoss (Huperzia serrata), Black radish (Raphanus sativus L.) and Ginseng (Panax ginseng). The Plant work package pointed out three substances of concern which are widely distributed in marketed plant‐containing supplements: furfural, emodin and chrysophanol. Future data are needed for refining the exposure of European consumers and characterise the associated risks.